I shall be running a six night course, late May 2010, at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne, Australia, on searching for the historical jesus, looking at the historical figure behind the religion – what do we know?

Course: searching for the historical jesus

Explore the historical Jesus, separate from the figure of devotion. In doing so, review the use of Christian and non-Christian sources and treatment of miracle claims, society, political and regions of early first century Israel and Middle East, analysing the primary source – the Gospels, review of research from the past 300 years, how Jesus, the man, is profiled by today’s scholars and future direction of research.

Class details

6 sessions:

Tuesdays 6.00PM-7.30PM: 25/05/10 to 29/06/10

Venue: 253 Flinders Ln, Melbourne

Session 1:

Review of research over the last 300 years with particular emphasis since Albert Schweiter’s book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906).

Session 2:

Nature of historical research, including use of Christian and non-Christian sources and treatment of miracle claims with a close look at the Resurrection story.

Session 3:

Society, politics and religions of early first century Israel and Middle East.

Session 4:

Analysing the primary source – the Gospels.

Session 5:

How Jesus the man is profiled by today’s scholars – disagreement and consensus.

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Book: Australian Book of Atheism published December 2010

"The Australian Book of Atheism aims to change that, gathering together an impressive collection of essays from pre-eminent Australian atheist, rationalist, secular, humanist, and skeptic thinkers, many of whom participated in the 2010 Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne." [from the publisher Scribe Publications]
Also I'm one of the contributors with an article on Progressive Christianity. Alex McCullie

Course 2011: Making Sense of the World

Centre for Adult Education: Melbourne
Content
What is Reality?
We shall examine two competing ways of understanding reality. Naturalism with its strictly physical world-view and traditional Christianity with a divine creator and organiser. Since the 18th Century Enlightenment, western society has moved away from traditional Christian understandings to a more naturalistic view of existence. We shall compare the two views.
What is Truth?
Modernism (there are universally reasoned truth) and Post-modernism (we can have personal truths only) also compete with different explanations on the status of knowledge and truth. This conflict lead to the (in) famous science and history wars of the late 20th century.
5 sessions:
Tuesdays 6.00PM-7.30PM: 17/05/11 to 14/06/11
Venue: CAE Building B - 253 Flinders Ln, Melbourne
Click to book

Course 2011: Being Good – 3 Views of Morality

Centre for Adult Education: Melbourne
BEING GOOD: 3 VIEWS OF MORALITY
We think about moral issues every day. Newspapers, television programs, and internet web-sites tell us what is immoral and moral.
Class details
5 sessions:
Tuesdays 7.30PM-9.00PM: 22/02/11 to 22/03/11
Venue: CAE Building B - 253 Flinders Ln, Melbourne
Content
We explore two traditional foundations of Western moral attitudes - traditional Religious beliefs and Philosophical thinking - with the more-recent and challenging research of Moral Psychology and ask the questions, does morality exist? Can there be universal moral rules? How do we know right from wrong? What is evil? How does culture influence morality?
Click to book

Presentation: Science – the Quest for Objectivity July 2011

Talk proposed for July 2011 for Sofia in Melbourne, where I'll question that science is simply the business for finding objective truths.

Natural Philosophy of Life – Blog

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Natural Philosophy
The natural philosophy of life offers a simple, elegant, and powerful alternative to religious dogma. This philosophy has a firm foundation in nature, science, and reason. It is centered on the core values of honesty, generosity, equality, and freedom. (quoted from the site)

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